In an attempt to clear his name, Gordon steals his case file and approaches Nygma for help. Meanwhile, Penguin discovers his step-family's role in his father's death, and awakens from his conditioning.

David Wiegand

While other comic book shows try to replicate the fantasy of the source material at every level, Gotham tries to walk a thin line between realism and fantasy. It seems to work--for now, at least. But you have to wonder about the challenges the series will face once those larvae become full-fledged, whackadoodle villains. Trying to have it both ways is courageous, but courage doesn’t guarantee success.

Brian Lowry

The Fox series is a handsome, gritty crime drama, with Ben McKenzie as the idealistic young cop and Donal Logue as his grizzled, ethically compromised partner. Yet if the show is supposed to work for its peripheral connection to the Dark Knight and his colorful menagerie of villains before they became such...well, that bat simply won’t fly.

Maureen Ryan

Matt Zoller Seitz

More troubling is the show's undercurrent of utter confidence, which sits uncomfortably with the clunky drama and borrowed style onscreen. Its best moments are carried by the actors; its worst might give you the disquieting impression that the makers of Gotham think you'll watch pretty much anything if the characters have the same names as characters from the DC universe.

Rob Owen

It’s unclear from the pilot how all these players fit together.... Gotham could rebound from its overly familiar opening episode. Maybe the villains will become more than the sum of their early cameos. And certainly the presence of actors of the caliber of McKenzie and Logue, capably playing odd-couple police partners, offers promise.

Matthew Gilbert

Tim Goodman

Agents of SHIELD always felt like a series that was missing a center (those superheroes), and it took a lot of episodes for the series to even find its own way and establish its own characters as at least semi-interesting substitutes to what you got at the movies. Gotham, on the other hand, arrives as its own entity, a wholly realized universe, in a separate time and place, with enough intriguing characters and a stylized visual presence that is immediately intriguing.

Robert Bianco

Patrick Gomez

Not all of Gotham is as successful--a side plot involving Gordon's girlfriend Barbara Kean (Erin Richards) has yet to find its footing--but this dark (and cinematically shot) series will feel right at home as the lead-in to Fox's similarly toned Sleepy Hollow.

James Poniewozik

Gotham is not reinventing the dark cop show, or the dystopian drama, or the superhero genre. But it combines them in a way that’s invigorating–and, honestly, it’s probably better than a new series with this built-in fanbase needed to be.

David Hinckley

Anyone who loves Batman, naturally, will be watching Gotham, and knowing the Batman world makes the show more fun. But it’s also surprisingly accessible to viewers who just like a good action-packed cop drama with a dry sense of humor. Up front, it looks like a bat-winner.

Dan Greenfield

Jeff Jensen

McKenzie is a winning mix of cockiness and righteousness. Even better is Donal Logue as his partner, Harvey Bullock—salty, slovenly, cynical. They're a dynamic dysfunctional duo. And while Jada Pinkett Smith's underworld boss Fish Mooney is tonally wonky, she's a bawdy blast nonetheless. The mystery of the Waynes' killing and the drama of the Penguin's ascendancy seem compelling fodder for season 1.

Jean Bentley

Marisa LaScala

Some of the characters aren’t able to achieve the same balance between fantasy and realism as the rest of the show.... Thankfully, Mooney isn’t as central a figure here as Bullock or Gordon, who together are fully capable of carrying the series, even without young Bruce. Logue gives an especially strong performance as Bullock, an exhausted, veteran crime-fighter who remains likable and charismatic even as his various failings seem inevitable.

Robert Lloyd

McKenzie's best moments are all spent in his [new partner Harvey Bullock's (Donal Logue)] company. Bullock loosens him up even as Bullock puts him off, signaling that their uneasy partnership will become an easier one. He performs a similar service to the whole production, bringing it down to earth, keeping it from becoming too much of a comic-book gizmo with its wash of rain grays and rot rusts and spittoon bronzes and Frank Miller lighting effects.

Zach Hollwedel

Gordon and the graft permeating the GCPD can be compelling enough to sustain a Gotham story in which Batman doesn't yet exist. However, without the foil of Batman, the villains run the risk of appearing cartoonish.

Mike Hale

As Gordon, Ben McKenzie is solid in a more theatrical version of the upright-cop role he played in “Southland.” Donal Logue is reliably blustery and sarcastic as Bullock. The biggest impressions are made by the villains, whose smaller roles are looser and more fun.... The real star of the Gotham pilot is its consistent style, a combination of production design, cinematography and writing that manages to evoke both the bang-pow 1940s spirit of the original “Batman” and post-”Blade Runner” neo-noir.

David Hiltbrand

Matt Roush

Gordon bristles with self-righteousness as he grimly takes the measure of Gotham's considerable underbelly. And that's where the lurid fun, such as it is, of Gotham can be found. And savored, as in Jada Pinkett Smith's sinewy nightclub gangster Fish Mooney.

Mark Dawidziak

Eventually, though, the series will need to get past some growing pains and mature into a drama that fully embraces the comic-book elements. You may have doubts about Heller reaching that destination, but, with this blazing a start, you'll want to be along for the thrill ride as he sets out to solve that riddle.